Memorial Stadium
Memorial Stadium has housed decades of recreation.
By Pete Ciancone

Memorial Stadium, a fixture on Terre Haute's east side for 80 years, has been the site for a variety of sports and gatherings, many in the years before the stadium was even a glimmer in the community's eye.

"They've had a little bit of everything," said Al Siebenmorgen, 84, who has lived on 34th Street across from the stadium for 27 years.

In the late 19th century, a harness racing track, known as "Four-Cornered," occupied the site at Wabash and Brown avenues.

After World War I, city planners conceived a stadium as a memorial to veterans. Local architects Shourds & Stoner designed it to be a huge facility -- an oval 600 feet long and 375 feet wide.

Center field's original wall stood 546 feet away from home plate.

"I don't think anybody ever hit a baseball over the center field wall," Siebenmorgen said.

"I played a few ball games in there," in industrial leagues as a high-school student, he said.

Baseball ended in 1956, much to Siebenmorgen's chagrin.

"I still think Terre Haute would support a baseball team," he said.

While the stadium's original and most frequent guest was baseball, it also was host for football, political rallies, even midget car racing.

"They used bales of straw to outline the track," Siebenmorgen said.

The grounds featured a golf course, built by the federal government during the Great Depression.

Charlie Olah, 90, has a special memory of that course. He remembers it as being 1937 or 1938 -- on the second hole, when a violent storm blew through.

"I was scared to death with that wind coming through there," he said. He ran under the stadium's concrete seats for protection, an option his father's truck did not enjoy. A limb fell on it during the storm.

The golf course closed in 2002, 33 years after the old baseball stadium was razed to configure the stadium for Indiana State University football. Only the Memorial Arch and part of the outfield wall remain.

Former ISU coach Dennis Raetz remembers that golf and football sometimes made for a difficult marriage.

Players practicing on the east side of the field needed their helmets for more than gridiron action. Raetz said he used to collect golf balls from the field before practice.

In 1967, Memorial Stadium became the nation's first intercollegiate field with AstroTurf, a surface that became a home field advantage, he said.

In wet weather, running toward the south end of the field, against the grain of the turf, Raetz said, allowed the ball carrier to stay afoot. More than one opponent who wasn't aware of the grain discovered that running the wrong way in wet conditions made it like an ice-skating rink.

The facility continues to be host for ISU football, as well as company picnics, charity events and marching bands, which stop in on cross-country trips to use it as a practice field, said Gail Barksdale, assistant athletic director at ISU.

Harness racing, baseball, football, midget cars, golf Memorial Stadium has seen a world of Terre Haute recreation, and it continues to be used. Its grounds recently have become an extension of the National Road Heritage Trail, and the city's newest park facility.

 

Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza

AstroTurf: In 1967, Memorial Stadium became the nation's first intercollegiate field with AstroTurf. Here, the field and part of the original outfield can be seen from atop the stadium seats.

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MEMORIAL STADIUM FAST FACTS
Where's it at: Northeast corner of Wabash and Brown avenues.

Birthday: Formally dedicated May 4, 1925.

Original cost: $400,000.

-- Nine-hole golf course added in 1932 as a Works Progress Administration project.

-- First baseball game played May 4, 1925, with the Terre Haute Tots defeating the Peoria Tractors 5-4. Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis threw out the first pitch to then-Mayor Ora Davis.

-- Leased for 99 years to Indiana State University for the purpose of building a football stadium in November 1966.

-- First collegiate AstroTurf field in America completed Sept. 16, 1967.

-- Demolition of old stadium began in November 1969, leaving only part of the outfield wall and the memorial arch.
Source: Vigo County Historical Society, Vigo County Public Library archives